SOME PRESENTATIONS OF THE LORD JESUS IN THE BOOK OF THE REVELATION

SOME PRESENTATIONS OF THE LORD JESUS IN THE BOOK OF THE REVELATION

Revelation 22: 16, 17; Revelation 1: 12 - 19; Revelation 5: 6 - 10; Revelation 19: 11 - 16

I want to say something about the Lord Jesus as He is presented in this book. He draws attention to Himself personally, in the first passage I have read, “I Jesus.” I suppose there is nothing more calculated to strike a chord in all our hearts than that personal reference of this glorious Person to Himself. I want to speak of Him, first as the Son of Man in the first chapter, then as the Lamb in the fifth chapter, and then as the Word of God in the nineteenth chapter. It is affecting that in this book, with scenes so dark in it and with a background that is so difficult in many chapters, there should be, by the Spirit and through the medium of him who lay in the bosom and on the breast of Jesus, projected on to our view such glorious features of this blessed Person whom we love and adore. It shows that no matter how dark things may be, how strong the tide of evil or how powerful the forces of lawlessness, the Spirit of God would hold our hearts and minds by a powerful presentation of the Person to whom we owe our all, the Person upon whom everything hinges as far as our blessing, our joy and happiness are concerned. It is a book in which, with deliberate divine definiteness, there is projected in detail things in an unvarnished way in regard to the assembly publicly, the great light-bearer, and in regard to the world at large, as the scene in which evil’s challenge long permitted has reared itself against God and His supremacy. It is a book where there is also depicted for us the sorrowful position of persons who have defected, persons who may be in filthiness and thus to whom the word is, “let the filthy make himself filthy still.” How solemn are these things which are depicted for us! But in the midst of it all, and over against it, come these bright rays of Christ’s glory, calculated to awaken fresh hope and desire in the hearts of those that long after Him, for, dear brethren, is He not our life? It is not only that we have come into things, but we have come to a Person who in secret has so endeared Himself to us, through all His ministrations to us. When everyone else left us and we had to go through things alone, He stood by us; this same Jesus, He never left us, He understood when no one else understood. In His priestly station on high, He was thinking of us and He ministered to us and through that ministration, not once, not twice, but all through life’s way, in wilderness scenes. He has endeared Himself to us in a way that no other man has or could. Not even those who are closest and dearest to us naturally, could ever have endeared themselves to us as Jesus has done. It sounds very simple, dear brethren, but have you ever sat down and pondered what would you do without Jesus? What would life be? Thank God, that we shall never be without Him, in time or through all eternity! How wonderful it will be to be actually near Him, to walk with Him and to talk with Him in scenes of purest joy above. If the blessedness of living with Him in private and in secret and in talking and communing with Him now, in the day seasons, in the night seasons, is so precious and blessed, what will it be in scenes of bliss above? Young brethren, how wonderful to be in a company like this, where every one is a lover of Jesus! Would you want to be anywhere else? Would you want to be out in the cold bleak world, with all that the great master-scheming mind has designed to draw you into? Would you be there? Never! How can we leave Him? Have you ever come to that in the difficulties of your soul, young people? I came to it in my teens. Have you ever come to it? You felt like leaving, and the word came into your soul in power. How can you leave Him? He is to be known in the assembly; we shall know Him in heaven, we shall know Him in glory above, but how blessed to know Him in the assembly now! How wonderful the assembly is! To think that there are persons that discredit the assembly, persons that say there is no such thing as the assembly in these days. Thank God we are not among them. Thank God that through grace, and with the help of the Spirit, on the ground of sovereign mercy, we know that wonderful sphere where the Spirit abides, where He dwells and where He has unfolded to us the heavenly glories of this One we love so well, who has become our life.

Does it not touch your soul that, at the end of this book, He should say to John, “I Jesus”? You can understand John’s feelings in his isolation, robbed of the fellowship and the companionship of the brethren; he was not able to be at these meetings as we are; he was on the lonely isle of Patmos. He would learn a little bit of the solitude that Jesus knew Himself, for Jesus had to say, “the foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven roosting-places; but the Son of man has not where he may lay his head,” Matthew 8: 20. You remember too, how He said, in the Psalms, “I am become like the pelican of the wilderness, I am as an owl in desolate places; I watch, and am like a sparrow alone upon the housetop,” Think of the solitude and loneliness of Jesus! Think of how John, who lay in His bosom and on His breast, would think of these words of Jesus. What a solace and a comfort they would be to him in the solitude of Patmos’ isle! What do we know, dear brethren, about this kind of thing? If our roots were more fixed in this kind of soil, there would be no desire to leave the fellowship and to go away. As the Lord said to Peter and to the others, “Will ye also go away?” Think of that! He did not just say, ‘Will you go away?’ It is not only that our affections are bound up with Him, but His affections are bound up with us, and think of what enters into these words, the depth of the affection, “Will ye also go away?” Is there anyone here that is thinking of going away? Is there a young brother or sister here who has had it in their mind and the enemy is supporting it and feeding it into their mind, that they are thinking of going away? How can you leave Jesus? How can you go away from the sphere where the blessed Spirit of God is, and where He glorifies that Person? After all the scenes have passed, in the Revelation, after all the judgments are executed. He comes in With a personal word to John, “I Jesus.” Think of the Lord coming into a meeting, or a season like this, and saying, “I Jesus”! Have you ever asked the Lord to disclose Himself to you? I think, dear brethren, that we should know greater intimacy with our Lord; it is a real matter to live near to Him and to walk and talk with Him here. Oh, the preciousness of it, you cannot explain it, you cannot pass it on to others! The inexplicable blessedness of living with this Person, in communion with Him, and the joy of knowing Him in the assembly. Think of every first day of the week as He presents Himself, you waken up in the morning and you are thinking of the Supper and the possibility of meeting Him! When a person comes by ‘plane or by train, and you are going to meet them, you know the feelings that surge within you, especially when it is one who is very precious and dear to you; and it is like that every first day of the week! As you awaken, your soul is filled with holy and spiritual sentiments and feelings that you are going to see the Lord. The assembly is before you and you come to the assembly as gathered with the saints in assembly, and the Supper is partaken of, the breaking of bread, and the Lord manifests Himself and says “I Jesus.” He would say “It is I myself,” as Jehovah saying to Abraham, “It is I.” He did not say, ‘It is Jehovah,’ or ‘It is the Almighty,’ He said “It is I.” Oh, for these links, dear brethren, of known intimacy and nearness with the One who discloses Himself in the assembly. How wonderful the assembly is in that light! If the time is moved up an hour, is it going to make any difference to love? Will love be burdened? No! love will be all the more quickened, dear brethren, to think that we are going to see Him earlier, we are going to meet with Him earlier. Love will get up earlier to prepare for it. The Lord’s day, the first day of the week, is no day for lying in. Love would make us agile. Oh, you say, We were out late on Saturday night. Well, did you think of the Lord’s day and the first day of the week? We want to think of the first day of the week, and the Lord’s day, for it is a special day. It is a sanctified day, a dignified day, and we are to treat it and regard it as such and not a day like the people in the world regard it. It belongs to the lordly Person of whom we are speaking, “I Jesus,” yet One so low in humiliation here.

Well now, I may refer again to that word in closing, but I want to speak now for a little while of the Son of man. This book opens with John, as we have been saying, on the isle of Patmos and the Lord is about to go over with him the matter of church failure. Has the Lord ever gone over with you the matter of church failure? Have church sorrows ever broken your heart? They have broken some hearts, have they ever broken yours? I am sure that John would have shed tears in secret after the view that the Lord gave him of the public failure. Indeed, in one of the passages that we have read in the context, John wept. He may be referred to as a ‘son of thunder,’ in the gospel, but he is a feeling man. He is a man that can weep, weep over what is so near and precious to the heart of Christ, but what, in the public position, the enemy has defaced and defamed. Do we feel it? So He is about to go over this whole matter and He presents Himself to John. The Lord always loves to present Himself to love, on our side. Has He ever presented Himself to you? Have you ever been conscious of it? It is a wonderful thing to be conscious of it. The Lord knows how to do it. It is a great thing to be devoted, as John was; he was a devoted follower of the Lord. It has often been said, and it is good to bear it in mind now in this universal gathering, that if there were more devotion amongst us, there would be more gift. I would say to those who come from difficult situations and difficult environments and circumstances that as your devotion develops and increases, as you give yourself over to the Lord and His interests linked with the assembly, He will develop gift. While gift is sovereign on the one hand, you will always find that where there is devotion, the Lord will answer it by the impartation of something that means something, both to Himself and to us, and to the assembly. I do not suppose John had seen Him in this view before, He is in the judicial garments for priestly scrutiny. He is not in the garments of service; John had seen Him in the attitude of service, in the very place where it is said of John that He was in the bosom and on the breast of Jesus. It is in that very section where he saw the Lord lay aside certain garments and wash the feet of the disciples. You can understand John must have been greatly affected by that. He must have watched the Lord carefully as He went from disciple to disciple. Think of the Lord going down to their feet! What would the Lord not do with us in order that we might have part with Him? Would not you like to have part with Christ? We have been speaking in these meetings about the matter of believers having part with unbelievers, and the like. Think of having part with Christ! John saw how the Lord was prepared to serve His own; the Lord gives us every advantage, and with every one of us we are the objects of His love and His care in this regard. It may be that with some one of us here, we need our feet washed; we all need our feet washed, but somebody needs especially the touch like Peter, and the Lord would do it for us tonight. It is not a question of being washed all over; it is a question of a final touch. We have been speaking about final touches, and the feet are the final part that go off the earth and the Lord would touch that final part, dear brethren. We are not going to go up feet first, I speak reverently, but the general idea is that man is made upright, so that our feet are on the earth. Of course, it includes more than that, but the Lord would help us, on the eve of translation, as to this final touch involving the matter of our feet, the matter of defilement. It is the matter of contact, as we had in the word that the Lord gave us last night. We have in John 13 the disciples and their feet, and their contact with the earth, and the Lord would serve them in view of having part with Him. John had seen that, but now this is another view. The garments are not the garments of service, they are the judicial habiliments. They are, we might say, the garments that belong to the strange work, for judgment is the strange work, as we are told in the word. But in the midst of this strange work, and in the midst of all that suggests distance, we have, as we know, the golden lamp and the golden girdle. We have the emphasis on that glorious thread which runs through whatever the defection. Let men say what they like, in their departure from the truth, the golden side is there; the golden lamps are there and the golden girdle is there. It is symbolical of course, but it is to remind us, dear brethren, that what is divine abides whatever the ruin and the failure may be in the responsible light-bearer.

Now I want to refer to what it says in verse 16, “and out of his mouth a sharp two-edged sword going forth; and his countenance as the sun shines in its power.” We have often alluded, dear brethren, to the word of God and the priesthood of Christ, in the epistle to the Hebrews, and the symbol here of the two-edged sword going out of His mouth is linked with the countenance of Christ and the sun shining in its power. Have you ever thought of the link between these two things here? You will remember how, in Psalm 19, the sun is spoken of as a bridegroom. It is very striking that we should get this figure here and that we should get the bride at the end of the book. It is as if we are reminded, at the end of the book, that the sun has completed its circuit, and on to view comes the bride, “the Spirit and the bride say, Come.” Again like the bridegroom in the Psalms who is in strength, we have the sun here in the meridian of its strength, for it says, “as the sun shines in its power.” Whatever the weakness or failure may be publicly, Christ remains in His shining. His countenance, which reflects the glory of all that He is, remains in the meridian of its strength throughout the dispensation over against the failure of the light-bearer in the public position. And that sun tonight would shed its benign rays upon us, its healing warming influence! Think of it as linked with the word of God, the two-edged sword! Oh, someone might say, The matters that we have been having have been cutting deeply, cutting a little bit too close home. Dear brethren, I would say, Let the word of God, as the two-edged sword going out of the mouth of Christ, have its full way with us, “penetrating to the division of soul and spirit, both of joints and marrow, and a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart,” Hebrews 4: 12. Let it have its full way, and as we accept the exposure and seek grace to deal with the matters that the word proceeding out of Christ’s mouth would call our attention to, we shall get all the priestly grace and support of Christ flowing in behind to help us in relation to all that we may have to face. It may involve sacrifice, it may involve suffering, it may involve reproach and ignominy, it may involve being ostracised, but oh, the value of the priestly service of Christ as we accept the exposure! But then, dear brethren, if I might be allowed to apply this scripture (I am not seeking to interpret it at the moment) as to the countenance of Christ, as the sun shines in its power, I believe faith can see a suggestion of the bridegroom in it. He looks over the public history and He thinks of the bridal glory that marked the church in the early days of the Acts, and He thinks of the bridal response in the early movements of the assembly, especially at Ephesus, when in the power and preciousness of first love, they enjoyed the charm of those heavenly relationships with Christ, which the assembly stood in. Think of Him as His countenance looks upon the position of the public light-bearer, robbed of her bridal adornments, robbed of her bridal glories in that public position. How He must feel it! But then all the blessedness of the warmth and the healing that is linked with His wings as arising, in the other type and symbol of the sun in Malachi, would come into the soul who is prepared, in the midst of the public defection, to accept the exposure and move into all the joy of the revival as seen in Philadelphia, where His countenance shining in its power is felt by those who are prepared to accept death to all that is in the world, and enjoy in secret, as standing in the truth of the assembly, and its heavenly relations with Christ, the blessedness of this warming and healing influence of the sun. What a presentation! It is the Son of man, dear brethren. You may say,

the brethren are saying hard things, the ministers are saying hard things. They are not considering rightly for us, they do not know the circumstances. But the Son of man does. It is the Son of man who is clothed with judicial habiliments - the One who is on our side. As Son of God, He is on God’s side, but as Son of man He is on our side; and it does not matter what locality we come from - you might say, ‘It is alright for America, or it is alright for England, or Australia.’ But it does not matter where we come from, the Son of man stands in relation to universal dominion, universal influence, and He is on our side, sympathetically and feelingly, for He is the Son of man. Oh, how He feels with us! But His eyes are as a flame of fire. Oh, the holy jealousy that lies behind those penetrating eyes, discerning in the midst of us what is unsuited to love’s cherished thoughts! Love would not suffer anything upon us that denies the true features of the assembly in her heavenly glory.

Now a word as to the Lamb. What a presentation of Christ, dear brethren, the Lamb is! It would have been wonderful to have had a talk with John after all this. I am sure he would say to us, ‘I cannot tell you the half of what I have experienced.’ John had to suffer this on account of the testimony, for he was there because of the word of his testimony. What about the word of our testimony? What about the word of our testimony to our school principals and instructors, to our employers, to our supervisors and superintendents? What about the word of our testimony to the directors of the concern that we may be bound up with? It is a wonderful thing to see a believer fearless in the presence of a board of directors, speaking about Christ. Not saying he has got religious feelings and religious ideas, but a fearless confessor of Christ. We want to be like that! John was like that. But now heaven has said to him,

“Come up here,” Revelation 4: 1. I love that thought! We have often heard of it, how heaven loves to call the sufferers for the testimony up there, as it says, “Come up here.” It is not just ‘Come up,’ but “Come up here.” We might say, not that we want to put too much in it, it is where Jesus is, where God is, where the throne is in its eternal majesty and supremacy. “Come up here,” and you will get a view of everything from there. Would to God that every one of us, from the youngest to the oldest, knew something of this experience! There are those that have known what it is to face the violence of the picket lines. We speak feelingly about these matters. There are those here that have known what it is to face these extraneous matters that militate against the assembly’s heavenly glory, and we can speak feelingly about these matters. But when you get up into heaven, through that door in the Spirit’s power and you see the throne, your soul is prostrate before divine majesty. What does man’s poor might mean? What do all his forces marshalled against a believer mean? May the Lord give us a touch of it! The voice says, “Come up here.” And this is one of the things he is to see. “I saw in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, a Lamb standing, as slain.” Think of that! You would think that if it were slain it would be lying down, but it is standing. Of course, it is symbolical, but the symbol is to impress our minds; every detail, as it were, is designed by the Spirit of God to throw into transcendent relief this glorious Person. As we think of the Lamb - “I Jesus,” as He said at the end, but the Lamb here - we think of how He suffered for the rights of God. Think of how He suffered at the hands of men, uncomplainingly, as it is said prophetically, “he was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and was as a sheep dumb before her shearers, and he opened not his mouth”,

(Isaiah 53: 7), and then as Peter says, “who when reviled, reviled not again; when suffering, threatened not; but gave himself over into the hands of him who judges righteously,” 1 Peter 2: 23. We might well give ourselves over into those hands, as Jesus did. John sees Him as the Lamb, and how it affected him. John had been weeping over the fact that there was no one able to take the book, and his attention is drawn to the Lamb standing as slain. Oh, what that brings into the soul and into the mind, as we think of how He was slain, how the experience of death was that holy One’s. How He entered the empire of death and conquered him who had the power of death, and forth from death He has come. But He once lay there, dear brethren, and John sees Him as a Lamb standing; no longer lying, He is standing. It is like the vision that Stephen saw, “the Son of man standing.” He is in that position and actions are going to flow from this chapter onwards. Things are going to be done, the man of sin is going to be met and he is going to be met through this channel, we might say, of operation, I speak reverently, but he is going to be met by the “Lamb standing, as slain.” And it says, “having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God.” I think this is remarkable that the Spirit of God should be linked with the holy Sufferer, as Jesus the Lamb was. Think of the Spirit of God, in His plenary character and in the fulness that marks Him in the administration of the throne, identified with the holy Sufferer, the Lamb! He will always be identified with suffering ones, as they suffer in the spirit of the Lamb, as Peter tells us, as to those that suffer, “If ye are reproached in the name of Christ, blessed are ye; for the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God rests upon you,” 1 Peter 4: 14. You see, the great effect it has.

Now just a reference to the Word of God. What a holy scene is before us, a scene of holy jubilance!

Not only is the rival to Christ being met, in the man of sin; but the rival to the assembly has been met. She who has beclouded all bridal beauty and glory in the public testimonial position, she has been met and overthrown, and on to view comes the wife of the Lamb. We belong to the wife of the Lamb Think of the privilege that is ours as being the wife of the suffering One, the assembly, in the sense of all that belonged to Him in this dispensation - the wife of the suffering One. It says, “the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife has made herself ready.”

Are we in this? Have we made ourselves ready? Is there anything that has to be adjusted or attended to as we come into this glorious scene? Surely, we want to be ready! But the passage that I have read says, “the heaven opened.” The assembly is coming out as the wife of the Lamb. If the assembly fills the divine presence and the divine mind as it does, how it should fill ours more and more! The heaven opens and then we have “a white horse, and one sitting on it, called Faithful and True.” Oh, the glory of “I Jesus” in this relation! The One who was Faithful and True. How faithful He was, even to death! How true He was! The Lord looks for the reflex of that in us. The Spirit of God would produce the reflex of that in us, so that we should be faithful and true. Then it says, “his eyes are a flame of fire.” It is very interesting, the link with the assembly feature in the beginning of the book, where we have the Son of man in judicial garments, bearing on the public light-bearer, the assembly in her public position. The reference to the eyes again appears, “his eyes are a flame of fire, and upon his head many diadems.” That holy head once crowned with thorns, now adorned with the many diadems! Oh, the thought of His appearing! Do we love it? We are going to be with Him, as it goes on to say, “the armies which are in the heaven followed him upon white horses,

clad in white, pure, fine linen.” It is not only that their associations, as in the clothing, are pure and white, but what supports them in movement is white. What a scene of purity! We are reminded, amidst all the defilement and wickedness in this book, of abiding purity and stainlessness in relation to heaven, in relation to God, the throne, and Christ and the assembly. And it says, “his name is called the Word of God.” That is, every bit of the knowledge of God that we have has come through this glorious Person - “I Jesus.” Let it strike a chord in the power of the Spirit of God in our souls! “I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify these things to you in the assemblies,” every local position in His mind. “I am the root and offspring of David,” it reminds us of the greatness of that glorious Person and the refinement of His humanity; and then He says, “the bright and morning star.” It is the special way He appears, in the assembly period, in heavenly light and glory to those that are in this wonderful stream of living movement with which the Spirit of God identifies Himself, as “the Spirit and the bride say, Come.” May the Lord bless the word to us for His name’s sake.